


here comes the sun, she'll blind you

by orphan_account



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-09-27 09:03:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9994730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There's something about watching Kara climb the rig of a ship she never thought she'd be on, something about watching her Captain finally free of the burden of hiding herself away. Alex knows that she shouldn't be so pleased to have turned against the Marines, but she can't help it. Kara's smile is the only thing she'll ever need.It helps that when she's pledging her loyalty to the King of Pirates, she pledges it to Kara. She can't imagine giving herself over to anyone else.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The pirate AU no one ever asked for is here! Hopefully this will be more drama than angst and more goofy Kara is the pirate king but everyone thinks it's Alex when they meet hijinks.
> 
> Featuring: J'onn being the crew's dad and Streaky, Kara's pet Kraken.
> 
> Thanks to Vy for helping me come up with this ridiculous thing!

There’s a warm wind blowing in from the east when Alex finishes tying off the last of the rowboats to enter port. There’s been a rise in refugees fleeing the wars from that direction, wars she has no interest in beyond how they will affect her home, how they will affect Kara.

Arms wrap around her waist, a head burying itself between her shoulders. She feels the warmth before she hears that familiar voice, feels the way she shakes against her.

“Missed you…”

Alex chuckles, pats her arms for release before turning to face Kara. There’s a crinkle in her forehead, her pout out in full force.

“Drills with J’onn again?”

“Why do I even have to do them? I’m a sailor, not a soldier.”

Alex chuckles, tucks a loose strand of Kara’s hair behind her ear as she takes her in. She looks more tired than usual, her normally neat bun fraying as she moves to slump against Alex’s shoulder. J’onn must have had her awake earlier than usual for her to look this tired.

She takes Kara’s hand, their fingers entwining as she directs them towards the town, not wanting to linger on the harbor front while there’s a storm off in the distance. Kara pulls them home, the old tavern more welcoming than the room they share in the barracks, cold and sterile as it is.

J’onn is already there, as is Vasquez and a quad of her fellow soldiers, deep in their mugs. It’s only been a day since the last attack, she remembers, a day since they’d lost one of their own.

“Lieutenant Danvers, Seaman Danvers.”

Alex nods to Vasquez, motions to the barmaid for a pint of her own as she sits. She doesn’t reply to Kara’s frown. It’s not too early to drink, she thinks, not too early to swallow away her own problems in watered down ale and familiar company.

Kara’s hand on her leg is firm, steady. It’s a point of focus for her as time passes and she gets drunker. Part of her is thankful that she isn’t on duty, drowning out the part that screams of being wary, of being on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary.

Things have changed since Kara’s arrival, have moved from the turmoil of the empire’s losses back to the seeming peace of a town like theirs, but Alex knows that it’s a lie, that the wars out there will come to haunt them one day. She knows that they aren’t safe as long as the navy is there, but she doesn’t really care. They’ve suffered a loss. They deserve this time to themselves.

“Aly,” Kara whispers and she jumps, spilling ale on the table. She glares at the other woman, not used to being surprised like that. “J’onn’s been trying to get your attention.”

“Sir?”

J’onn huffs a laugh, waves her away. For a moment, she wonders what he wanted, what she had missed, but another mug is set before her and she pushes the thought aside in favour of more drinking.

Halfway through the mug, Kara slips it away from her, replaces it with her hand when she frowns. It’s not ale, but Kara has always been more intoxicating than alcohol in every way.

The calluses on her hands are rough, a reminder that she is here, that she is alive. They’re a reminder that Kara hasn’t left her yet, hasn’t gone the way of her father.

She leans into her, relaxes as she listens to Vasquez’s latest gossip from the visiting Armada ships she’s had to liaison with. Soon, she thinks, they’ll have to scramble to prepare for an inspection from some puffed up general or another. The mainland won’t be ignoring the influx of refugees for much longer.

Kara’s thumb rubs against her palm, almost as if she can sense her thoughts. Sometimes Alex wonders if she can, wonders how one person can know her as well as Kara does. It cuts at her, almost has her pulling her hand away.

Only, there’s a sound in the distance, canon fire that gets closer and closer. Tightening her hand on the one holding it, she stands, pulls Kara towards the exit. J’onn and Vasquez are with them, the others already fanning out to get the tavern’s patrons to safety.

They have to get out of there, have to make it to the barracks, to their weapons, but there’s so much fire that Alex isn’t sure that they can make it in time. Still, she tries to move forward, to get through the chaos.

Only, the hold on her hand is tightening, Kara refusing to move. Turning to try to spur her into action, all Alex can see is fear, fear and anger and something else she can’t name. She’s about to ask, about to demand an answer for her stillness, when Kara speaks.

“Aunt Astra…”


	2. Chapter 2

She hasn’t seen those colours in years, hasn’t seen the familiar emblem snapping against the wind since her twelfth birthday. Snapping dark against the afternoon sun, it burns itself into Kara’s mind, a subtle fire that builds and builds as her blood boils with a rage she’d long thought gone.

Alex tries to get her attention, tries to get her to move, but she can’t seem to lift her feet, can’t seem to find the will to run. It’s too much too fast and all she can see is a smile that used to mean everything to her, a smile that used to remind her of everything she’d ever loved.

Her fingers flex, wanting to hold something, to reach behind her for a sword that isn’t there and just swing, lash out. She wants to make the world burn for bringing this back to her, for forcing her past into her present when she had finally, finally found some semblance of peace after so long.

“Come on, Kara!”

Alex’s shout brings her back to herself, forces her to look around at the chaos unfolding before her. She frowns, noting the wanton destruction being wreaked by canons being fired into the town, the way men and women pour from the ship, seeking only to hurt, to damage.

When Alex tugs this time, she goes with her, runs to the barracks. Something isn’t right. Something has happened that should never have occurred and she needs to know, needs to find her aunt.

Only, she doesn’t know what will happen when she does, what Astra will do. She doesn’t know what she will do if they meet, doesn’t know if her hands will stop shaking, if her heart will calm.

Alex is speaking, words dripping from her tongue like rain, but Kara can’t focus, can’t concentrate. Everything is slowing down, time seeming to stop as she forces herself to move past the injured, the violated, as they cry out for help, beg for the mercy of death, of salvation.

One step, two. She loses track of how far they run, her mind spinning as she focuses on getting to her room, to her weapons. She doesn’t want to use them, doesn’t want to take them out of their hiding place, but something feels wrong about this attack, about everything that’s happening.

It feels like years have passed before they reach the wooden structure they call home, Alex separating herself from her only long enough to issue orders to her squadron. Kara ignores them, taking off for their shared room, for the space under her bed she knows holds everything she thought she’d left behind.

Sliding to her knees, she reaches for rough canvas. The bag is lighter than she remembers as she pulls it out, rummages. Quickly, she pulls out the old sword, slings the rest of her possessions into the bag. Her clothes, she leaves. If there’s time, she can return, can find them again, but instinct guides her to take the rest, to gather everything that matters to her and Alex.

“What –”

Kara cuts Alex off with a gesture as the other woman enters, pushes Alex’s weapons into her hands as she pulls her along. They need to get out of there, to find Astra as soon as possible. She’s the only one who can stop this, who can marshal her men into some semblance of order.

Everything happens quickly, buildings burning, the dead piling up. She’s seen this before, felt the way time speeds up as everything falls apart around her, but Kara doesn’t care enough to stop, to mourn. She doesn’t have the time to.

J’onn and Vasquez join them as they make their way to the harbor, ducking behind one of the few buildings that haven’t been set aflame when a large group of men pass them by. Kara can smell the rum on them, can see the way they leer at the women they’ve cornered.

She moves to go to them, to fight, to do something, but J’onn holds her back, shakes his head.

She wants to be angry, to pull away and go to them, but she doesn’t. J’onn knows what this is, has seen it. He’s the only other person who understands what she’s seeing, what she’s feeling, and she can’t just leave him now, can’t leave any of them.

“Kara?”

She looks to Alex, sees the question she won’t ask. Alex never has.

“We have to find her, Aly,” she says, answering the other question left unasked. “I need to find her.”

“She’s right, Lieutenant. If we can find the Captain, we can possibly stop this madness from spreading too far across the island.”

“The General,” Kara corrects, clenching her jaw. If J’onn recognizes the flag, then they need to acknowledge who it is they’re looking for. “We’re going after the General.”

“But she’s—”

Alex falls silent when Kara turns to her. She sees the moment the other woman realizes what she’s saying, the moment she connects the stories Kara has told her with everything that’s happening now.

Turning away again, she follows J’onn as they start to move. They’re forced to ignore everything that’s happening around them, forced to hide and prolong the end of this destruction if they want to make it in one piece.

She’s annoyed by how slow they move, but there’s nothing she can do about it, nothing she can say that will help. Kara knows that they need to take their time, knows that they need to place their own safety first if they’re to get to Astra before anything else happens.

The scent of sulphur hits her nose as they cross into the harbor, an explosion at their back sending them to their knees. She already knows what she will find when she turns, has already seen it before.

The fires burn brightly, joining with the light of the sun to sting her eyes as she stares, fists clenched.  Everything is gone, everything is lost and she doesn’t know how, doesn’t know when or why.

“Beautiful, isn’t it Kara Zor-El?”

She turns back to the ship, squints up at the familiar figure there. She recognizes him not by his appearance, but by the contempt he aims at her, no longer restrained. For a moment she wonders why, wonders what has changed, and then she sees it, sees the way the flag is ripped, the gash down the middle severing the skull and crossbones laid against her aunt’s crest in half. She sees the body tied to the rigging, the blood dripping down her clothes onto the deck below.

Kara knows then, what has happened, knows what will happen next as she jumps. Somehow, she can’t find it in herself to care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I said it wouldn't be as angsty as the others, but the angst is short! I swear! Maybe two chapters? Or three? I have reasons!


	3. Chapter 3

The wind is howling as it surrounds them. It screams as if it mourns, as if it feels the pain radiating off of Kara as she jumps up to meet the man, her rage almost visible beneath her skin as she scrabbles to climb up the ship’s hull.

It scares Alex, the way she seems to have lost control, terrifies her as much as it pushes her to do something. She wants to approach, to calm her with words and touches rarely expressed beyond the confines of their room, but she doesn’t know how to deal with this strange, almost devilish creature.

Her fingers find her rifle, grip slick with sweat but sure enough that she prepares herself in case Kara needs her. The coolness of the metal is a reassurance in this heated gale, a reminder that she’s here, that she can be of some use to this miracle of a girl.

“Alex,” J’onn murmurs his hand holding her back before she can follow Kara. “Don’t.”

She makes as if to protest but he shakes his head, gives her that look she knows to be a command beyond words. Their duty is to protect the people of this town but, without a town all they can do is watch as one of their own struggles to regain mastery of something that Alex doesn’t understand.

Kara moves like the air that surrounds her, fighting the man, Non she remembers from whispered stories and bawdy retelling of encounters gone sour, with a ferocity she’d never dreamed her capable of. Watching her twist out of his way, her blood dripping onto the wood, mixing with Astra’s, Alex wonders where this part of her has been hidden all this time.

She moves like she dances, a kind of grace Kara’s had to hide for the years she’s been here, one that entrances her more than she wants to admit. It’s like watching the wind, like watching a union between air and sea that crashes against Non’s sword over and over again in a show of brute force that makes her wince with each hit that bites into Kara’s skin.

Kara ducks, spins below a swing meant to take off her head. Alex tenses, watches in slow motion as Non reverses his swing and brings the blade down on the space where Kara’s shoulders meets her neck. Blood sprays, stains the deck, stains Astra’s sagging body as it slips lower.

Kara’s lips move, her voice lost to the wind, but Alex knows her well enough to know that she’s past the point of pleading, of begging Non to stop, if she had ever even thought to do so. She knows what Kara is about to do before she does it, knows the exact moment she moves in close to get to Non, the moment she takes that sword in her ribs.

Every moment after that is a blur, every movement meant to get her closer to Non, to Kara. She manages to catch her when the other woman’s legs give out, manages to get her leaning against one of the ship’s masts before turning, aiming.

The first bullet misses. The second hits his shoulder. The third meets his stomach. The fourth sends him over the railing, crashing into the ocean.

Alex turns, rushes to Kara’s side. She tries to examine the damage done to her, tries to care for her now, but she’s pushed away in favour of the woman hanging above her.

Kara is gentle with her body, tears failing freely as she caresses her face. She whispers something that Alex can’t hear, can’t understand, but it doesn’t matter. The sorrow in her voice is clear enough to make Alex drop to her knees by her side, to make her wrap herself around Kara as she grieves for a captain Alex had never known.

All she can do is hold onto her, watch out for anything that might hurt Kara while she stays there. It’s not enough can’t be enough, but she doesn’t know what else she can do.

* * *

“Mon-El!”

Kara’s grasping onto a stranger, holding him with all her strength as he ascends from the lower decks with a number of other men and women. Alex doesn’t trust him, doesn’t trust the way he scans Kara hungrily before his eyes clear, but she lets Kara have this anyway.

“Missed you guys. What happened?”

“Non turned on Astra when she refused to attack your port. She didn’t want to do anything that would put you at risk for injury or worse.”

Kara stumbles back into Alex, jaw clenched. She wraps her arms around her, watches the way realisation creeps into her expression. It’s quick, something close to an ache that Alex can’t soothe, as Kara looks from Mon-El to where Astra’s body lays covered.

There’s a heat that seeps through the cloth beneath Alex’s arms, a curious sensation that makes her want to lift her shirt, make sure she’s okay, but Alex resists for a moment. The horror Kara’s expression settles on, the pain, is enough to still her hands, to keep her from doing anything more than hold her as she gapes.

The man, Mon-El, looks at them strangely, but Alex ignores him in favour of rubbing Kara’s back with one hand.

“She knew.” There’s a coldness in her voice that Alex has never heard before, a frost that doesn’t belong there. “She knew where I was and she never tried to find me.”

“Your aunt was a wanted woman, Kara. She didn’t want to put you on the path to danger.”

Kara rips herself out of her arms, turns on J’onn before Alex can stop her. It’s all she can do to get between them before anything can happen, before more blood can be spilled.

“Move, Alex.”

“Not until you drop the sword.”

She can see the way Kara itches to do something, to lunge forward. They’re too close for her to hurt her, too close for her to move efficiently, but this is Kara. This is the girl who can somehow do the impossible without a thought.

“Alex, please. I’m not…I’m not going to ask again.”

J’onn pushes her aside gently at that, and she knows that he does it because of the break in her voice the way her sword shakes in her hands. She’s not meant for this, Alex thinks, not meant to hold a weapon like that.

“Kara, we need to talk about this.”

Alex watches her, winces when she steps away, the crowd surging around her, almost enveloping her. She eyes the sailors that have joined them, pirates, her mind supplies darkly as her fingers twitch on her trigger. They’re ragged, almost worn down to the bone every single one of them, and not a man or woman looks ready to just let them be.

It makes her skin itch, makes her want to grab Kara and run, but she knows that it’s impossible here, that it would only serve to make things worse. How she knows, she can’t say, just that there’s a feeling of wrongness surrounding the thought, a feeling of something not right that she can’t get rid of.

“Oy,” one of the women says, a mean looking slip of a girl who barely looks older than Alex, with skin a few shades lighter than J’onn’s, “step off Navy. She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Kara…”

She steps forward, pushes past J’onn. Kara needs someone, needs her. Her fingers are steady even as she keeps the rifle at her side, her eyes only on Kara, only for Kara.

The other girl seems to understand, brushes past the first few weapons, a signal of sorts to the others. She’s heavy in Alex’s arms, heavy enough that she drops her gun, wraps Kara up in herself. Tears fall onto her bloody shirt, but she doesn’t care, can’t care as the energy in both of them seems to fade with the dying wind.

“You’re okay,” she says as they’re guided off-deck, not really caring where they go. “You’re good. I’m here.”

Kara nods and Alex lets her relax. She’s holding her up now, wincing whenever a step jostles her cargo, makes her groan in pain. She has to clean Kara’s wounds as soon as possible, has to stitch the wounds closed as soon as she can before they become infected, before sepsis sets in.

She’s already categorizing what she needs, wondering if she’s picked up enough supplies to care for her. She’s not sure, her bag back with J’onn, but she thinks that she has everything, that she can do that.

“You okay to be left alone?” she asks when she helps Kara to a large bed. Glancing around the room, she notes the opulence of their temporary quarters briefly. “I need to get my bag or something to stop the bleeding, at least.”

Kara shakes her head, clings to Alex as closely as possible. She tries to pull away, to gently break her grip, but it’s too tight, so much stronger than she’s used to.

With a sigh, she glances back at the man who had guided them there, asks for what she needs. He nods, leaves them as quickly as possible in order to retrieve what she’s requested, but she’s already turning back to Kara, poking her to get her to shift.

She’s running a fever already, but Alex ignores it, content to just hold her for now. It’s not enough but it’s all she can do, all that Kara really wants. In the end, that’s all that really matters, she thinks as she settles in next to her. It’s all that she wants to matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not really happy with this one but yeah. Typos to be edited later.
> 
> Note: If the show can rewrite Mon-El so can I.


	4. Chapter 4

There’s a warmth that starts from her stomach, a constant, humming thing that spreads through her body. Her senses are dulled, blinded, deafened, reduced to nothing more than this feeling of heat, but she finds that she doesn’t mind.

Slowly, Kara allows herself to adjust, to come to herself in the moment. The feeling of warmth extends, rocks her to and fro as her nose picks up the scent of salt and fresh air. In the dark, she tries to get up, struggles to make her muscles move until something pushes her back, forces her to lie down again.

There’s a grumbling nearby, the weight on her chest shifting as it approaches. She can’t tell what it is, only that it becomes longer, heavier as it keeps her down, keeps her in place.

Kara shudders when lips brush her ear, when the weight extends to her lower body. It’s familiar, so very familiar, but she can’t place it, can’t figure out where she is, what’s keeping her in place.

She tries to get up again, tries to sit, but she’s just pressed down once more.

“Stop,” is whispered gently to her, and she attempts to turn into that voice, to sink into its owner. “You’ll hurt yourself so please, just…just stop moving, Kara.”

Alex, she thinks as she feels more, the warmth turning into a burning hot sensation. Her skin is pressed in, body restricted by more than Alex. Injured, she remembers then. She was injured but she can’t remember why, can’t remember how.

She tries to open her eyes, fails. Once, twice. The third time works, her vision blurry as she slowly comes to herself. There’s a dark wooden ceiling above her, trappings familiar, but not, surrounding her as she attempts to figure out where she is.

“Kara, if you don’t stop moving, I’m gonna tie you to this bed and never let you go.”

“Where…where are we?”

She tries to breathe, can’t quite catch her breath as everything fades in and out. The bandages are too tight, too restrictive, and she wants to claw at them, to tear them away. She doesn’t know where they are, can’t remember where she’d been injured, but their presence is enough to choke her, to cause her throat to close, to betray her like this.

There’s a hand on her stomach, Alex pressing gently into her side. She scrambles to catch it, to twine their fingers together as she finds comfort in the touch of skin on skin. It grounds her, gives her something to focus on other than the pain.

“Kar, Kara Kar Kar, stop moving please. You’ll reopen your wounds.” Alex presses a kiss to her cheek, the smooth murmuring of her voice more of a comfort than the return of her senses. “You took on Non and survived, dummy. No need to go off and leave me because you can’t stay still.”

She struggles, turns a little so that she can face Alex. Her eyes are wide and dark, fear, loss, need fighting for prominence. Sighing, she strokes her hair back, leans in until their foreheads are touching.

“Not gonna leave, promise.”

“You can’t promise that, Kara.” Alex’s voice breaks on her words like waves on rocks, breaks through the haze of pain to Kara’s heart. “You can’t promise that you won’t leave me alone again.”

Kara stretches, kisses her forehead. She pulls Alex as close as she can without hurting herself, without bleeding on sheets so soft and smooth she wishes she could melt into them.

“I go where you go, remember?”

Alex huffs a laugh. “Maybe, but this time I think I’m the one who’s going to have to follow you.”

Kara pulls back, confused. “What? Alex what are you talking about?”

“You don’t recognize where you are?”

Kara shakes her head.

“Pretty girl, you’re on your aunt’s ship. Pretty sure if I tried to move you I’d find myself with a hole where my stomach used to be.”

Her aunt’s ship? That can’t be right, can’t be possible. Astra doesn’t know, can’t know where she is, she thinks, wouldn’t just leave her alone with no one familiar, no one she’s grown with and loved for years.

“Alex,” she mumbles, “up. Need…need to get up.”

Together they sit up, Alex’s hands on her back and stomach, her thumb stroking Kara’s skin through a too thin shirt and the bandages. It feels like she’s on fire wherever Alex touches, a familiar heat she doesn’t want to think about, doesn’t want to acknowledge just yet.

Leaning into Alex, she looks around, takes in the trappings of a life she’s forgotten, a family she’s missed so desperately that it aches in her very bones. Maps litter a small table pushed into a corner by a large window, dwarfed in comparison to the flood of light from the sun, a familiar compass shining on top of it. Near the door, there’s the sword her aunt would only wear when she was feeling nostalgic, nothing but a pretty trinket, she used to call it, while pairs of boots neatly line the wall next to it.

Memories sink back in, the haze of rage lifting enough for her to see the way Astra was hung on the rigging, the way Non’s face twisted cruelly as he fought her, taunted her. Her wounds ache and it’s all she can do to stop herself from throwing up, from wanting desperately to empty her stomach so she doesn’t have to think about it.

“Alex…” She clings to Alex’s hand, squeezes so hard she’s afraid that she might break it. “Alex, I think…I think I lost my aunt.”

Alex doesn’t say anything, just lets Kara turn into her, holds her close as she cries. She’s lost her family again, lost the only other person in the world that could have understood the secrets she carries, the burden her parents have left her with. She’s lost the one person in her family she’s loved almost as much as her own parents and her heart breaks again and again as the knowledge consumes her.

She presses closer to Alex as time passes, her tears drying, voice fading, but not wanting to let go of this, to let go of her. Alex is all she has left, is all she has to hold herself together now. She doesn’t want to lose her, doesn’t want to face a world where she’s not there by her side.

Kara snuggles into Alex.

“Don’t die, okay? You’re not allowed to die and leave me, ever.”

Alex laughs, runs a hand down her arm. “Okay, Kara. I promise.”

* * *

 

She sees Mon-el before he sees her, some wild story being spun before an audience captive as ever. M’gann is in a corner, probably listening in, she thinks, in that way she does while she keeps an eye on…J’onn?

The familiar anger boils over again, muted only by the arm around her waist. All she can think is that he knew, _he knew_ and he never told her, never gave her the chance to believe, to hope. He let her mourn when she didn’t have to, let her believe she had been alone in the world long before that had actually been true.

The betrayal of her trust stings more than Non’s sword cutting into her shoulder, burns more than the pain in her ribs. It’s a wound in and of itself, a gaping hole where something used to be that isn’t anymore.

“Hey, hey come back to me.”

She looks at Alex slowly, unblinkingly. It’s hard to see past the haze, hard to see anything but the rage that consumes her when she thinks about her aunt, but she tries. She tries to remember where she is, who’s holding her until finally, finally she can see her.

“Hey.”

Alex squeezes her side gently.

“Hey, where’d you go on me?”

“I…J’onn knew about my aunt.”

Alex nods, holding her close.

“I know, Kar. I know it hurts but he’s J’onn. I don’t know why he didn’t tell you but he must have had a reason, right? He adores you.”

Kara snorts, leaning into her more. “He tolerates me. You, he adores.”

“I disagree, but that’s not important. We need to figure out how to get off of this ship before we’re run through with those swords which look pretty sharp, now that I think about it.”

“They won’t.” Kara waves to M’gann as she speaks, dragging Alex with her as she heads in her direction. “Everyone here is pretty friendly.”

“Are you sure about that? They’re probably wanted everywhere and I’m not about to leave you to their weirdly dubious intentions.”

Kara rolls her eyes and dances out of Alex’s grip, wincing when the rolling of the ship coincides with an increase in the pain in her ribs. Dancing is not a thing she should be doing right now, she thinks. She grabs onto the nearest thing she can before she falls, M’gann’s hand wrapping around her arm until she’s holding her upright.

Kara glances at her, smiles. These are the crew members her aunt had trusted most, the ones who had stayed loyal to her, even when Non was, apparently, offering something that Astra never would. It feels good to see them again, to be able to touch a part of her past that had been lost.

“It’s been a while, M’gann M’orzz. I thought you were lost at sea.”

M’gann returns her smile.

“It has been.” She glances at J’onn, frowns. “I would stay but there are things I have to do. We’ll talk later?”

Kara nods, watching her go with a frown of her own. There’s something off about her, something that looks a lot like fear, but she doesn’t know them, doesn’t know any of them so that couldn’t be it. She glances at J’onn, wonders for a moment but then shakes her head of the thought. They couldn’t know each other, couldn’t have ever met before. She would have known, wouldn’t she?

Then again, she hadn’t known that he had known Astra, had she? The darker part of her wonders if he had ever been truthful, if she had ever really known anything about him.

“Kara.” He remains where he is, nods to her without moving. She appreciates it. “We should talk about this.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Then I’ll back off, but you should know one thing. The crew took a vote this morning. Alex, Vasquez and I…we decided to join rather than to resist.”

Kara looks at Alex, surprised.

“It was my decision to make, Kar. I don’t want to take this away from you but I can’t leave you either.” Alex comes up to her then, presses a kiss to her cheek. “You and me against the world, right?”

Kara nods, closes her eyes for a second. She doesn’t want this for Alex, doesn’t want her to go on the run, but she can’t deny that finding a part of her past like this, finding people who knew her from before, who accepted her so easily once upon a time, it makes her want to stay.

“There was a vote, of course.” J’onn’s voice brings her back to the ship. “For the time being, until they can stop squabbling long enough to actually come to a consensus, I will be taking command.”

“J’onn…”

There’s a part of her that rages against that, a part that wants to rush him, to take him apart for taking something that’s supposed to be Astra’s, for tainting something that isn’t his to taint, but she can’t. She knows the rules, knows that once the vote is cast, that’s it. She knows well that her aunt wouldn’t want her to interfere like that.

“I…and Alex?”

“My right hand man.”

“Woman,” Alex chimes in, amused. “Right hand woman.”

Kara glances at her, watches the way Alex’s face just lights up at the thought. She can’t take this from her, can’t take the adventure she’s always longed for away, no matter how much she wants to yell, to scream out that this is the life that took Astra from her, that took her family, her first home.

She doesn’t want it to take anyone else, to take anything else, but she can’t deny Alex this. So she swallows, looks at J’onn, looks through him.

“Okay. I…okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Danvers, amirite? Adventure on the high seas. Who's with me?


	5. Chapter 5

Alex watches as Kara climbs the rigging, her movements quick and precise, with her heart in her throat. She hates when she does this, hates when she takes to the air with nothing to hold onto but the rope beneath her hands. She hates the way Kara doesn’t look, doesn’t think when she climbs, but she can’t deny her this.

She can’t call out to her, can’t take it away when this is the life she _knows_ Kara’s always wanted, always needed. It’s too much in her blood, too much a part of who she is and Alex can’t deny her that, won’t deny her that.

“You want to call her down from there, don’t you?”

Alex looks at the tall, tanned man next to her. He’s staring up at Kara with a wide grin and a hunger in his eyes that makes her uncomfortable. It’s not the same kind of hunger she’s seen in Mon-El’s, but it’s just as dangerous, more unsettling.

She shakes it off, forces herself to turn away from him even though every instinct is screaming at her to watch his every move around Kara, to keep him away from her. She has to remind herself that Kara knows these people, trusts them enough to be herself around them, for the most part.

She has to take a breath and remind herself that this is what Kara wants and there’s nothing she should do to stand in the way of that.

“She’s having fun and doing actual work. I’m not going to stop her.”

The man shrugs, moves to follow Kara. Despite the muscles and the height he’s quick, nimble in a way that matches Kara. She’s rarely ever seen someone who can do that, rarely ever seen anyone who can retrace her path without fear of falling. It’s unnerving, the more she thinks about it, disturbing in a way she doesn’t want to think about.

With a shake of her head, she turns away, moves to go to where J’onn is manning the wheel. She doesn’t say anything, just nods at him and looks at the horizon, scans it for any and everything she can think of. When she’s sure that there’s no danger, that it’s just a straight line separating sky and ses, she turns back to where Kara is talking with the man from before.

“Who is he?”

J’onn grunts as he follows Alex’s gaze.

“His name is Mir. No last name, as far as I know, but I’m told he was one of Astra’s favourite lookouts.”

Alex’s eyebrow goes up. “Lookout? He has a soldier’s build.”

J’onn nods. “I’m also told he’s a competent fighter, but he’s been climbing those ropes for as long as he’s been under Astra’s command. Kara says he was quite small as a child.”

“Huh. That name sounds familiar.”

“It should. Kara used to talk about him a lot.”

Alex looks at J’onn. “The kid who used to follow her a lot? And she called him her own personal puppy?”

J’onn nods.

“I guess things don’t change sometimes.”

“You don’t trust him.”

“Of course not. I don’t know him and he watches Kara too much. It’s my job to protect her, even from herself.”

He chuckles. “Kara knows this crew better than we do. They were all loyal to Astra before, so they’re loyal to her now, Alex. She’s safe here, safer than she was back home.”

Alex sighs. She knows that. She knows that Kara is safe here, but there’s a part of her that isn’t ready to let go, isn’t ready to simply let Kara be somewhere she can’t trust. She’s not ready to let her go when every part of her being is telling her to hold on, to never let her go.

She looks at the crow’s nest where Kara is balancing on top of the railing as she talks to the man from before, Mir. She can’t see her expression, can’t tell what she looks like, but Alex is all too familiar with the changes in her body language that signal a happy Kara, a Kara that’s content.

Part of her wants to climb up after them, to force her way between them, but the rest of her leaves it, makes her stay where she is, one eye on the pair, the other on the horizon. She can’t do anything like this, can’t chase after Kara and do her job.

She has to choose, has to decide what’s worth it, what’s worth Kara’s anger and what’s not. She has to pick her battles because one wrong move and they could all be dead.

* * *

 

Kara grins as she pulls her into the mess to eat. There’s something singularly unappealing about having to eat with a bunch of strangers she doesn’t know, a bunch of unfamiliar faces that she can’t read, but Alex doesn’t say anything, just lets Kara be.

She’s forced into a seat and made to wait as Kara flits off to get what she can only guess is fish stew. It doesn’t smell appealing, but she can’t really fault the cook for trying after she’s seen what their stores are like. As she looks around, she makes a note to tell J’onn that they need to dock and replenish them as soon as possible. This kind of food can’t be healthy.

There’s a grunt and Mir sits in front of her with a larger bowl than anyone else has. He grins at her.

“Hello Alex Danvers.”

She looks at him warily, nodding in acknowledgement of his greeting. As she watches him eat, she starts to feel queasy at how fast he eats and just how voracious his appetite is. It makes her want to throw up, to get out of there and empty her already empty stomach into the ocean.

He seems to notice this because he slows down, starts chewing. With a small smile, he pushes the half full bowl towards her.

“Eat. You look like you could use it.”

She shakes her head, is grateful when Kara returns with two bowls. One, she can’t help but notice, is the same size as Mir’s and she has to wonder who got the habit of eating so much from whom.

“This doesn’t look so good,” she says instead, watching it fall slowly from her spoon. “In fact, it looks like I imagine liquid death would.”

Mir shakes his head with a grin. “It doesn’t, actually. Captain Astra once acquired some and it actually looked really pretty. Like a little galaxy in a bottle.”

Alex raises an eyebrow at him and Kara laughs. She almost forgets her misgivings at the sound, almost forgets that she should be wary of this crew.

She has to remind herself that these pirates would sooner kill her than laugh with her, would see her strung up and hanging from the highest point they can get her body. She doesn’t know how J’onn does it, how he blends in so perfectly, but she can’t. She can’t let herself forget who these people are as much as she wants to for Kara’s sake.

“Come on, Alex. You have to admit that he’s probably actually seen it himself.”

“Do I?”

Kara nods. “Mir and my aunt were actually pretty close. He was in training with her when last I saw him, and it looks like he did pretty well for himself. Give him a chance? For me? Please?”

Kara looks at her with wide eyes and Alex sighs. She really doesn’t want to do this but she doesn’t have a choice, not when Kara is looking at her like that, all innocence and need and something she can never quite say no to.

She can barely stop the aggravated growl before giving in, looking at Mir. He’s grinning at Kara and it’s almost sweet, none of the earlier hunger there to taint it. She wants to hate him, wants to have a reason to be wary of him, but he gives her nothing to work with.

“Fine. Tell me about this liquid death thing then.”

* * *

 

“What are we doing here, sir?”

J’onn looks up from the map he’s poring over with Vasquez, expression open, curious. He motions for her to continue.

“This game we’re playing or whatever you want to call it? What are we doing and why?”

“I thought that would be obvious, Lieutenant. We’re on a ship sailing for territory unknown to us. It’s a simple form of conjecture to make, based on what we have experienced so far.”

Alex sulks as she drops onto a nearby couch. She barely glances at the map before grunting and getting up again. Examining it, she marks out a course to the nearest port known to be friendly to pirates.

She shrugs when they look at her. “We need supplies, sir. Lunch was passable but even Kara couldn’t eat more than half her usual and you know how she eats.”

J’onn sighs. “Of course. Anything else I should know about why you suddenly decided to co-opt this navigation meeting?”

Alex shakes her head. “Not really. Just don’t get why we’re still here. Is it for Kara? Is it for our safety? You never made our priorities clear, sir.”

He looks around for a second, before motioning for Vasquez to join her on the couch. She makes space for her before looking at him, waiting patiently for his answer.

“What I’m about to tell you is not to get to Kara, do you hear me? You two were busy tending to her wounds when the vote was called but the entire crew is aware of it as well and are in agreement with me.”

“Of course sir.”

Alex is hesitant to add her agreement but she nods anyway. She doesn’t want to add to the list of things that she has to hide from Kara but she needs to know what J’onn is hiding, needs to know what they’re putting their lives on the line for.

J’onn leans against the table and looks out the window behind them.

“Long ago, I met a young woman. She was brash and idealistic and in complete opposition to her family. She believed in her cause and believed that she could bring peace to the seas in a way that they couldn’t. After all, who could oppose the pirate king?”

His smile is cynical.

“A few days ago, that woman died, strung up against her own ship, prey to her husband.”

“Astra? Astra is the pirate king?”

“Was. That title has since passed to Kara.”

“What?!”

“Your sister is the inheritor of that title. It’s a hereditary thing. Astra needed to name an heir and, if the sea found that heir worthy, through blood and pain they’d inherit the title.”

“Blood and…when she fought Non?”

J’onn nods. “As a non-member of the crew, she needed to take the ship for herself with her own blood, otherwise it would have been a free for all for anyone who wanted to try. Kara bled to keep the ship from Non and her blood is in the wood now. It’s accepted her as the true king and there’s nothing we can do to reverse that, short of killing her.”

Alex can feel her pulse speed up, can feel all the ways in which this shouldn’t be happening. It makes her sick with worry, more determined to stay with Kara. There will be people after her once word gets out, people who would have her head if they knew.

She needs to protect her, to keep her safe. As she looks at J’onn, she realizes that he’s right. They can’t tell Kara, can’t let her know what her aunt died for, what she is now. It would devastate her again, push her recovery back so many steps that it doesn’t bear thinking about.

All Alex can do is hope that she has it right, that she’s not endangering Kara like this. She can only hope that nothing she does puts her in harm’s way because she can’t see Kara leaving her, can’t watch her go somewhere that she can’t follow, no matter how much she wants to.

* * *

 

She’s out near the railing, looking up at the stars twinkling above them when Kara finds her. She’s wrapped in a blanket that’s too big, makes Kara look smaller than she actually is. It makes Alex want to wrap her arms around her, pull her closer and shelter her from the storm that’s brewing in their future.

She shakes herself free of the urge, extending her hand and nothing more. When Kara takes it, she tangles their fingers together and waits until Kara steps closer, nudges her with her shoulder.

“Come under the blanket?”

“It’s not that cold.”

“Alex…”

She sighs, untangles their fingers briefly to pull the edge of the blanket over her shoulders before going back to holding Kara’s hand again. She doesn’t really want to let go, doesn’t want to ever pull away, but Kara is scorching hot where their skin meets and Alex is afraid of being burnt.

Still, she holds on, pulls her closer than before. She can’t help herself, can’t stop herself from needing Kara more than she’s ever needed her before.

“Everything’s different here. They’re the same stars but there’s something different.” Alex listens as Kara speaks, eyes tracing familiar constellations. “There’s always something different and it’s always changing. I used to be accustomed to it, but now it feels overwhelming, like there’s something under my skin, itching to get out.”

She looks at Alex.

“I don’t know what it is.”

Alex rubs her hand with her thumb, listening. She knows how much being out here means to her, how lost Kara must feel all over again. She wants to keep her safe, to give her something she calls her own, but she’s not sure if it’s her place, if Kara even feels the same way.

So, she lets her talk. She gives her the chance to tell her about her aunt, about sailing with this crew from time to time and how much it means that she can do it again. She lets her tell her about all the things she has never told her about before and Alex has to wonder how well she actually knows Kara.

As the night goes on, she stares and stares at her. She memorises everything she can in the dim light of the lamp she has with her, the shadows cast against Kara’s face making her look like someone else, like someone Alex doesn’t know, can’t know.

She leans close after a while, nuzzles her shoulder.

“I promise you this, Kara. I won’t let anyone take this from you. Not me, not J’onn, not anyone. You want this world? I’ll make sure you have it, okay?”

Kara doesn’t answer, but Alex doesn’t need her to. It’s a promise that speaks for itself, a pledge to always look out for her and give her the world. Kara doesn’t deserve anything less than that and Alex knows this, has lived by it since the day they met.


	6. Chapter 6

She scrambles up the rigging quickly, not daring to look down. She’s not at the right height for it, not yet, and she doesn’t want to spoil the view before she can get to it. Besides, she’s winning the race and looking back will only slow her down before she can get to the top.

The ropes shake beneath her and Kara grins as she hears Mir’s breathing. He’s still wounded from the last attack, still healing, but he tries to keep up with her, tries to beat her at this when he knows that he can’t move faster than her. She laughs at the thought, shakes the rigging a little as she climbs.

There’s an “oof” below her, a lightening of the tension on the ropes for a second before it begins again, only less. Mir must be lower now, must have fallen due to the strain on his injury. She feels bad about it, regrets doing that to him, but she’s out to win, out to get to the top before he does.

She scrambles the last few feet, swings into the crow’s nest and grins down at him. He shakes his head with a wide grin before moving up again, slowly this time. He’s been beaten and there’s no reason to hurry now, not when Kara is already up there, already scanning the horizon.

There’s nothing there, of course. There are no ships dotting the line, no approaching storms. If she wanted to call the day calm, she’d do so today, but Kara can’t. There’s this niggling feeling at the back of her mind, this sensation of something about to go wrong. She can’t ignore it, can’t cast it aside like she might do any other feeling, because this is open sea and all her aunt’s lessons are coming back to her now.

“Something wrong?” Mir grunts as he swings up into the nest beside her, eyes narrowed as he looks out. “I can’t see anything troublesome out there.”

She shakes her head, bites her lip. “Neither can I, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything.”

“Huh…” He pauses, seems to think as he looks out. Kara can’t tell anymore, can’t read him like she used to.  “I guess it’s like the General used to say. The sea calls to its faithful.”

She frowns, remembers those words. She’d had no idea what they had meant then, but she thinks she does now, thinks she knows exactly what Astra had meant when she’d said that so very long ago when she was a child.

“I…it’s just that I _know_ something is out there, or someone. I just don’t know who it is.” She starts pacing. “Like...like, there’s someone watching, waiting for us to come within striking distance, but I don’t know what that is or _why_ they’re waiting, you know?”

He sighs and looks out again. “I know what you mean. It’s like there’s something that we’re missing, something we’re not seeing.”

Kara reaches up and ruffles his hair. He ducks away with an amused grin, makes as if to climb back out of the nest, only to end up on the other side. She grins at him in return, flits to his side and nudges him with her shoulder. His grin turns into a charming smile and she can’t help but melt, can’t help but love this man who has only ever been as a brother to her.

He bows his head when she hugs him, presses himself closer. She runs her fingers through his hair, presses a kiss to his temple before stepping back, twirling in his hold with a laugh.

“You’ll get us in trouble if we keep playing up here,” he says, smile still light, still happy. “The captain isn’t going to be pleased.”

Kara laughs. “That’s his normal face. He’s never going to be happy, if all you’re judging is his expression. It’s never going to change unless you can make him laugh.”

“How do you do that?”

She winks. “Trade secret. Wouldn’t want to make it too easy for you.”

He laughs, leans back against the railing. She likes him like this, light and happy and just himself. He’s her little brother and seeing him like this makes her feel freer than she’s felt in a long time.

Kara looks down, sees Alex and J’onn at the wheel again. She shakes her head, waves. As Alex waves back, she wonders what it would take to make her feel like that, to make her feel as free as she used to when they were back in Natcit Town. She wonders what it would take to make her feel like she used to, to make her feel at home here.

That Alex doesn’t feel like she can be at home is something she can’t help but feel bad about. It taints her happiness, makes her wish she’d been back on land with her instead of out here, doing whatever it is that they’re doing. It makes her wish that they’d never left, that they’d never had to watch her aunt die.

She lets out a quiet sigh, forces herself to focus on the task at hand. She can’t afford to miss anything, can’t afford to let anything slip by her. Too much is at stake every day, is at stake when she shouldn’t be playing.

“I’m sorry about everything,” she says, looking out at the horizon. “I didn’t want to leave, but my parents put me on that ship and they didn’t let me look back.”

There’s a grunt behind her and then she’s being hugged from behind. Mir nuzzles her neck and she giggles a little.

“That tickles…”

She can feel his smile against her skin. It makes her feel warm, happy.

“The General was angry but I was just…sad. I’m happier now. I have my big sister back and she’s staying for as long as she can, right?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m staying.” Kara spins to look at him, caressing his cheek. “Look at you, all grown up and doing things without me. Makes me feel like I’ve fallen behind, somehow.”

He leans into her touch, eyes closed. There’s something like peace in his expression, something like the kind of thing she wish she’d see on Alex before everything falls apart between them because she can’t fix it.

“You’ve left me behind before.”

* * *

 

She hops up onto the railing at the front of the ship, climbs up onto the bowsprit and stares out at the open sea with narrow eyes. There’s still nothing there, still nothing to see, but she tries anyway, tries to look past the obvious and find what’s bothering her.

She presses her fingers against her eyes, wonders at the way she can still see and feel the last raid, can still tell the way she’d felt when Alex had been injured. She never wants to feel that again, never wants to feel the rage, the anger sweeping past her defences until there’s nothing left but a red cloud that she can’t see through.

Kara shakes her head, pushes the vision of red away. She can’t afford to let herself be distracted out there, can’t let herself lose her mind out there when the sea tosses with an anger that seems to mirror her own.

She sighs, climbs down from her height. She needs to be better, to be more careful she already is. Alex will kill her if she falls, will kill her if she risks her life unnecessarily on this ship before they can make land, can rest somewhere that doesn’t move with the whims of the weather and open water.

She sings to herself as she comes down, an old song, a shanty her aunt had taught her so long ago. She remembers learning the song at her knee, learning the words to dozens of songs that her mother never approved of but tolerated her knowledge of anyway. They’d been a way for her to bond with her aunt, a way for her to stay calm when the old wounds of her nightmares threatened to consume her until there was nothing left but an empty shell.

She looks out at the sea again, looks out and wonders just when it had come to this, wonders just when she’d be back here, back on this ship without Astra, without her guidance to show her which way was north when she’d become confused.

Her hands go to the pendant hanging from her neck, presses it against her hands until she can feel it leaving an indent in her palm. She stares out at the horizon, wishes she could figure it out before something bad happens, wishes she could see what she was missing before it all goes bad.

There’s a flash on the horizon, somewhere on the northeast boundary of her sight. She rubs her eyes, tries to figure it out but it doesn’t repeat itself, doesn’t happen again while she’s looking. Kara groans, tries to see if she can find something, anything.

Only, there’s nothing there to be seen, nothing to tell her if she’s succeeded, somehow, in finding what she’s looking for. There’s only open water and cloudy skies, only that and nothing more.

It makes her lonely, makes her wish for something other than what she has already, but she doesn’t say anything about it. She doesn’t let herself be taken in by the distinct lack of anything that would guide her as to what she should do next. She doesn’t let herself give up, not when she has something to protect, something she needs to keep sane in ways that she’s never had to worry about before.

* * *

 

She goes in search of Alex, looks for her amid the crew of dozens despite knowing exactly where she might be. The search calms her, prepares her for when she has to face her, has to see all that she’s left behind, all that she’s forced her to leave behind when she’d decided to go after Non and Astra on that day.

She finds her on the aft deck, training with Mir. She watches as they move, sees the way their spar becomes a dance between them. She thinks it’s beautiful, thinks it’s something that she wants to see more of, wants to know more about.

Kara thinks it’s something that was fated to be, this dance between her brother and sister, her friends and protectors. She thinks that maybe this was something that she should have seen coming all along when everything had been leading to this, but she doesn’t say that. She doesn’t dare interrupt the play of weapons between them.

Only, there’s something more to it, something that she can’t seem to put a name to but knows is there. It’s like they were born to this, like two halves of a puzzle she can’t seem to solve, no matter how much time she spends trying. It’s not romantic in the least, not something that would ever turn that way, but it’s something she can’t define, something she can’t figure out for the life of her.

She shakes her head of such thoughts, tries to center herself in the moment the way Astra had taught her. She stares at Alex and Mir, focuses on the sounds of their weapons clashing, on the way they dance around each other as they fight. It brings her back to the present, brings her back to herself and she focuses on that.

She grins when Alex slashes at his knees, watches as Mir falls back and trips over a stray apple from a fallen barrel. He’s still the clumsy boy she remembers, still the boy who never could pay attention to his surroundings long enough to actually succeed at doing what he needed to do to win.

It’s reassuring, in a way, more reassuring than anything she’s ever felt for a long time. That it’s because she’s watching Alex trounce Mir in a fight is something that makes it better, makes it something safe she can revel in.

Kara licks her lips when Alex drops, sweeps his feet from under him. Like this, she looks absolutely gorgeous, looks like something out of the stories Astra used to tell her when she was younger – runaway princesses who’d get themselves into trouble, rogue thieves so used to the streets that there’d be nothing stopping them from playing dirty.

She can’t help it when she hoots, when she cheers with the rest of the watching men and women as Alex pins him to the deck, forces him to submit, her sword pressed to his throat. He holds up his hands, watches her with wide, innocent eyes until she lets up, and only then does Kara deem it appropriate to approach, to go to Alex where she stands.

“Hey, you okay? You kind of nearly took his head off. I love you but my little brother can’t do his job without a head. Or eyes. He definitely needs both.”

Alex smirks at her and she relaxes. If she’s smirking, then everything is okay. Everything is fine and she doesn’t have to worry about Alex not being happy for a little while more. She doesn’t have to worry about her not being okay when every part of her is screaming with concern for Alex’s wellbeing.

She reaches out, moves Alex’s sweaty hair out of her eyes. There’s a twinkle there she hasn’t seen in a while, a spark of something they’ve been missing since they boarded the ship. She’s happy to see it, happy to watch the way she seems to light up as she spins her sword back and forth, grinning at her.

“I get it.”

“Hmm?”

“Why you like this life so much. I finally get it, I think.”

“Oh?” Kara grabs a too long bowline and climbs up a little under Alex’s patient gaze. “What’s the reason then? Let’s hear it.”

“It’s freedom. You were stuck where you were, never getting to go out to see, always watching people come and go. You wanted so much to come out here that you were willing to take the first ship that would have you.”

“Alex…”

She waves her concern away. “It’s fine. You took me with you, which is all I could really ask for, isn’t it?”

Kara drops to the deck, wraps her arms around her waist and leans her head against Alex’s shoulder. The muscles there are leaner now, harder and more pronounced, but it still feels the same to her, still feels like the same shoulder connected to the same arms that always find a way to make her feel safe. She likes that, she thinks, likes that they’re still familiar even when everything else isn’t.

“You could ask for more. I’d follow you wherever you want to go, you know that, right? That I’d do whatever it takes to be at your side?”

Alex strokes her hair and Kara purrs a little at the feeling. She loves when Alex is like this, loves the way her comfort can be so soft sometimes when everything stops making sense. That she does it in front of the rest of the crew isn’t lost on her either, is something she never thought she’d have.

“You know me, Kara. I’m always going to follow you, so following me might present something of a problem for you.”

Kara smiles weakly. “You’re horrible, you know that? Absolutely horrible, Alexandra Danvers.”

Alex scrunches her face as she walks them off the aft deck towards their room. J’onn had refused the captain’s cabin, saying that he didn’t feel comfortable, and Kara thinks no one’s had the heart to challenge them for it yet, so she’s been staying in there with Alex.

It’s almost relaxing to be surrounded by something so familiar. It’s almost as if she’s gone back in time, as if Astra is still there, guiding her on her path and showing her what she should do.

Alex pushes her onto the bed and cuddles close, careful not to jostle her too much. She turns into her, presses her nose against her throat and inhales. She’s missed this, missed the closeness between them that had stopped the moment Alex had taken up her duties on the ship, missed the way they could just relax when needed.

Her own position is tenuous. She does whatever is needed, but Kara doesn’t have a specific job. She doesn’t have anything that’s just hers, just something that she can call her own without worrying about whether or not she’s stolen it out from someone.

She wishes she did, wishes they’d treat her as more than just Astra’s niece, as more than this special person that they’d all had a hand in raising at one point in time, but she can’t change that. She can’t make them see her as anything but what she is at the moment.

Kara nuzzles Alex, wraps around her on the bed as she hears the crash of thunder outside. She’s torn between wanting to be part of the ship and wanting to be apart from it, to only exist inside of this room with Alex and only Alex, and it hurts. It hurts more than she thinks she can handle.

She breathes out slowly, feels Alex breathing against her. After the last raid, she’d been scared, been terrified of everything that touched her, threatened to take her away from her. She’d been scared that she’d lose her forever and that’s the last thing she wants, the last thing she needs to feel now that all that she truly has left of her family is on this ship and only this ship.

She presses her hand against her stomach, pushes her onto her back and presses her ear over her heart. Alex breathes in and Kara smiles at the thump thump thump of the organ she can hear through flesh and muscle. She’s here, she’s alive and everything is alright for now.

The flash on the horizon doesn’t matter. Mir doesn’t matter. The only thing that does, the only person that does, is here with her, beneath her, and that’s all she cares about that in that moment.


	7. Chapter 7

There’s something following them in the water. She knows that, can feel the way it slices through the liquid easily without concern for the things in its way. She wants to believe that it’s safe, that it’s nothing more than a few dolphins following along in the wake of the ship, but there’s a foreboding that Alex can’t get rid of, a feeling of something not quite right that bothers her more than she wants to admit.

She looks to the side, notices the way Kara frowns as she looks out at the open water. She’s been wearing that frown since the previous day, can’t stop herself from staring out in front of her even when Kara speaks. She’d been frustrated at first, wanted to force her to pay attention, but now Alex knows better, knows that Kara can feel what she feels, probably has had this feeling longer than she did.

She rests her hand on her shoulder, nods to her. Kara looks at her for a moment before swinging up, scrambling across the ropes to the crow’s nest above them. When Kara is safely up there, Alex takes her eyes away, goes back to staring out at the water. She can’t see anything, can’t tell if anything is out there, but she’s not taking chances.

With one last look, she retreats to the armory, grabs her rifle and the special gunpowder she’d been working on with one of the ship’s tinkerers. She loads it carefully, tries not to let herself get jostled by the increasingly erratic motions of the ship, but it’s a close thing, so close that she only lets herself relax when the weapon is finally loaded.

Shouldering it, she makes her way back out to the deck, climbs up slowly to where Kara is. She’s not as adept, not as used to it as her sister, but she still makes her way up there, promises herself to practice more to keep up with her. She has to learn, has to train more, because she can’t let Kara loose into this world alone, can’t lose here to something she herself isn’t prepared for.

Silently, they stand side by side and look out. Alex wonders what she sees, what it is that she can discern so much better than she can. In so many ways, Kara is better prepared for this life than her, is better prepared for everything that comes with this while she herself isn’t, and it burns, hurts her more than she wants to admit.

It isn’t fair that Kara can thrive here, isn’t fair that it’s obvious that she doesn’t need Alex, while Alex needs her more than anything at the moment. It isn’t fair, but Alex isn’t going to complain, isn’t going to take this away from her when she can do better, can be better if she just _tries._

A thud sounds behind her and Alex turns, rifle raised. She sighs, exasperated, when she sees that it’s just Mir, wonders why he always has to follow them. She doesn’t want to question him, doesn’t want to send him away when Kara seems to enjoy his company so much, but he’s always there, always on the edge of her sight, hovering.

He looks nervous, looks as if he knows that he’s not welcomed here. For a moment, she feels guilty, feels bad about it, but she shakes it off. Mir is free to be wherever he wants, free to follow them if he sees fit, but she’s not backing off, not just going to leave Kara alone just because he’s here. She doesn’t owe him that, doesn’t owe him any more of Kara than he already has and she’s not going to give him more.

He comes up to her, hands her a sword. For a moment, she considers rejecting it, considers taking the weapon and throwing it over the wall of the nest, but there’s something about it, something about the way the edge gleams in the sunlight that has her taking it from him, weighing it in her hand. The grip fits perfectly, the weight so balanced that the blade is everything she’s ever wanted.

Alex looks from it to him, swings it for a second before putting the sword down. She looks at him again, really looks at him this time, not just lets her eyes glance over his figure. He’s tense, his muscles pulling as he seems to resist the urge to jump, to do something that Kara will no doubt follow, will not let him do on his own.

She sighs, pats his shoulder. He needs to relax, to ease the tension out of his body before the two of them do something they can’t take back. Alex will follow them, knows that she can’t do anything but jump in after Kara, but she doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to have to give up this new life so soon after she’s begun to settle in. She doesn’t want to have to rescue Kara from something that could be avoided if these two would just relax, would let the tension go.

Still, she can’t blame them, not when her own body won’t ease, when her own body won’t stop anticipating something that she can’t see. She can’t stop waiting for something to happen that she can’t control, can’t do anything but go along with.

Kara stiffens, stares across the ship into open water. Alex wants to ask, to know what Kara sees, but she holds back, waits for her to tell her in her own time. She won’t force her, won’t make her look away when there’s something out there, something that bothers both her and Mir, if his own sudden focus is to be believed.

Alex shakes her head of those thoughts, grabs her gun and settles onto one knee. She might not be able to do much but this will have to do, will have to be all she can do for now. She breathes in, tries to take aim but she can’t focus, can’t find what Kara sees.

There’s a hand on her shoulder and Mir pulls her up, directs her to Kara’s side. Reluctantly, she goes, follows her gaze to the shadow in the water that’s rapidly growing, approaching the ship with a speed they can’t escape. Alex swallows, watches the way it cuts through the water. There’s something dangerous about it, something not right that sets her on edge immediately and she looks to him.

Mir’s face is grim and it’s then that Alex knows, knows that this isn’t normal, that this is something even this crew is wary of. She wants to ask, but she holds her tongue, levels her rifle on her shoulder and finally, finally takes aim. She breathes out slowly, moves her finger to just under the trigger.

“Alex, are you sure you can do this?”

She’d think Kara has no faith in her, but there’s something else, something serious that she’s rarely heard before. She looks at her, takes in the sharp lines of her face as she stares out at the water before returning to staring at her prey. She nods once, briefly, before settling to wait for whatever it is to rear its head above the water and give her something to shoot at.

“Give me a break, little sister,” she murmurs, dropping her shoulder slightly with a smirk. “You know I can do this. Remember how many times J’onn had to requisition my rifle because I kept wasting ammo on the practice range?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the smile, can see the way Kara’s lips quirk up at the memory, and she echoes it with her own. She won’t let Kara lose that lightness, won’t let her lose the things that make her who she is if there’s a chance that Alex can save her from the things that threaten to take it away. She won’t let her give up everything that makes her Kara if she can do something about it, something that means more than she wants to admit out loud.

Alex breathes in as a muddy grey hide breaks the surface of the water. She can’t see it clearly but she knows immediately that this thing, whatever it is, is probably covered in scales, in a slime that makes her grimace at the very thought of it. She doesn’t know how she knows it but Alex does, can tell from so high up that this is something she shouldn’t be messing with so easily.

Kara sighs, puts her hand on Alex’s back. She freezes, glances at her from the corner of her eye, but she doesn’t do anything more than that, doesn’t move. She knows that touch, knows the way Kara gets when she wants Alex to wait, to let something happen before she can do anything. She doesn’t know what she’s up to now, but Alex tenses, pushes her body to stay absolutely still as she waits for Kara’s signal.

She can feel Mir’s gaze on her back, wonders if he’s confused or if he knows what’s running through Kara’s mind at the moment. She knows how this must look, knows that any hesitation could cost them more than they’re willing to pay, but Kara knows the water better than Alex does, knows better what’s under there. She’s good, but Kara is better at this sailing thing, knows what she’s doing, and Alex trusts her judgement.

As she watches the thing’s body rise up, arch above the water, she thinks that there probably never will be a time when she won’t follow Kara into the unknown. It’s an odd time for such a reflection, but it makes her smile a bit, makes her want to shake her head and turn to Kara, hold her close as she stares at whatever this monstrosity is. She wants to tell her how amazing she is, how very beautiful she looks in the morning sunlight, but Alex holds back.

Now isn’t the time, isn’t the right moment. She can think about this later, can lavish all the praise she wants on Kara when they come out of this alive. The gods know, she’s going to need it, going to need all the reassurance she can get when they inevitably both end up injured.

She sighs, prepares herself mentally for that to happen. Given how hard Kara is focusing on the monster below them, she has no doubt that she’s thinking of doing something reckless, something Alex will have to follow her into just to keep her safe. J’onn will kill her, but she doesn’t care, can’t care when the person most at risk is Kara, is the person she needs to protect most.

She pushes the thought away, focuses on the monster, something snake-like and huge, as it finally rises to her line of sight now. Breathing out, she pulls the trigger as soon as Kara moves her hand, watches almost in slowed time as the shells explode against its hide, the damage very limited, almost nothing. Alex grits her teeth, reloads and fires again, but the results are the same.

“What…?”

Kara shakes her head. “I thought it would work but this is a dragon. We need something better, something that will pierce its skin but I don’t…I can’t think of anything.”

There’s something in her voice that Alex doesn’t like, something like despair. She wants to take it and destroy it, to make it so that Kara never feels that way again, but she doesn’t know how. If her rounds won’t pierce that thing, she doubts that any weapon they have could, doubts that they have anything that could work.

Still, she looks around for something, for anything that could be of use. Alex knows this, knows that this is where she’s better than Kara, and soon she’s climbing down to the deck, running to the cabin. She hopes she’s right, hopes that every story J’onn’s told her is based on fact, not fiction, as she drags the door open and looks around.

Astra’s thin sword is still hung on the wall and she grabs it, inspects it quickly as the ship shakes with the dragon’s attack. The weight is better than she thought it would be, but there’s nothing special about it, nothing that makes Alex think this could be of any use.

She shakes her head, replaces it quickly as she looks around, looks for something that could be of use to her in that moment. There isn’t much, isn’t anything that isn’t in the armory, but still, she searches the cabin, looks everywhere she can think. When she spots what she’s looking for under the bed, Alex breathes a sigh of relief, strokes down the covered blade of the longsword before dragging it out of its wrappings and running outside.

The ship is a mess. The masts are damaged and there are broken bits of wood everywhere, soaked and damaged by the constant barrage of the dragon’s thrashing. She manages to duck as one of the crew comes flying her way, batted across by the thing’s tail, but the man isn’t so lucky, impaled on a broken door almost immediately.

Grimacing, Alex turns away, searches the mess for Kara and Mir. She knows that he won’t abandon her, that he’ll stay with her until she returns and after, and for once she’s grateful for that, knows that he understands how important Kara is. He understands better than most that Kara is everything and she’s not going to fault him for protecting her when Alex needs him to do even more than that for anything to make even the remotest sort of sense anymore.

He swings down next to her, glances at the sword in her hand before replacing it with the one he had given to her earlier. Then he’s swinging up, climbing faster than she thought he could to get the sword to Kara. She follows him, pushing herself past what she usually allows herself as she makes her way up the rigging until she’s at Kara’s side again, panting but grinning at her.

“Remember when we were just starting and J’onn would make us run drills against each other until we were too tired to stand?”

Kara nods, brows furrowed. “Yeah, but this isn’t training.”

“I know. How do you feel about dragon meat for dinner? I head it’s really good once you get it cooked properly, and something tells me the cook might know how to do that. He looks mean, like the kind of person who’s eaten a dragon.”

That pulls a smile from Kara and Alex lets herself bask in it for a second before looking down at the monster they’re supposed to be fighting. She swallows, lets her body sway with the ship before looking at Kara. They’re supposed to be in this together, supposed to watch each other’s backs until they die. She’s not going to leave her now.

“Okay, on the count of three, you jump and swing onto that thing’s back and stab down, like you used to do to Matterson, okay?”

Kara grips the sword and nods. She’s uncomfortable with it, shifts it from hand to hand and Alex has to resist the urge to take it from her, to do this herself. She needs Kara, needs her to work with her as they fight. She can’t do this alone, can’t do this without her and she doesn’t trust anyone else to watch her back the way Kara does, doesn’t trust anyone else enough to leave her life in their hands they she does with her.

“Alex,” Kara says, and there’s something in her voice, something that makes her look up in question. “Be careful, okay?”

She swallows, nods and then steps back to let Kara go. She doesn’t want to leave her to this part alone, but Alex has to force herself to watch as Kara clambers across the rigging, grabs one of the loose lines and swings onto the dragon’s back. She’s so good at this, so much better than Alex thought she would be, but she doesn’t care at the moment, ignores that in favour of watching, ready for her part.

Kara slides down a little, appears to fall for a second before gripping onto the thing’s back. She scrambles up its hide, looks around for a second. Alex has to dig her nails into her palm as she watches her sway as the dragon moves, nearly falls off of its back again until she plants the sword straight down into its skin.

Alex watches long enough to see it go in up to the hilt before Kara pulls it out a little and starts to run. At that, she takes her cue and swings over the railing, jumping straight down. Before she can hit the deck, Alex grabs the rigging and uses the same line Kara used before stabbing into the dragon with her own sword.

She’s surprised when it slides in easily, but Alex doesn’t think about it too long. Instead, she pulls her rifle off her back and shoots straight into the gap she’s created, using the recoil to propel her up onto its back where Kara had been. Reloading quickly, Alex starts shooting as she runs, careful to keep her balance as she moves. She can’t let herself fall here when they’re so close to doing something effective.

The dragon roars, shakes beneath her and thrashes at the explosions inside of its body. There’s another explosion beneath her, a howl of pain as Alex looks down, sees part of the dragon consumed by fire. She wants to crow in victory, to yell and celebrate, but it’s too soon, too early to do anything.

Kara runs up to meet her, grabs onto her and pulls her down just as its tail splashes, creates a wave that nearly takes her down. Alex turns to her, opens her mouth to speak, but she isn’t fast enough, isn’t strong enough to stop Kara from slipping off. She calls her name, reaches out to grab her, but it’s too late and all Alex can think about as she dives is that she can’t lose her.

She never sees the other shadow coming.


End file.
